On the question of free-will vs. determinism

[Onar Åm]

The answer is yes and yes. Of course, your questions presuppose those answers. If the computer is sufficiently powerful and your knowledge of the human brain is sufficiently complete then you could create a human brain which would have freewill. You are essentially asking if we could make a copy of a human brain would it be a human brain? Sure it would. We could theoretically make a molecular scale map of a brain and rebuild it molecule by molecule and it would be indistinguishable from an organically created brain. Perhaps you mean to ask something else?

Actually you filled in a couple of assumptions here that I did not make, but which biases your answer: 1) with complete knowledge of the BRAIN you have complete knowledge of the MIND. 2) the behavior of the mind is 100% predictable, i.e. can be built from 100% deterministic components.

Now, if this is really true then you are stumblingly close to saying that consciousness is an epiphenomenon. In other words, if a computer can accurately replicate the behavior of the brain *without consciousness* then clearly consciousness is not a necessary ingredient of the mind. Now, if this is truly what Ayn Rand meant then basically she has reinvented determinism with different words, and I don't think that is the case.

Here is my view on the matter: consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. It is a real causative factor, and without it you cannot have a mind. My primary evidence for this view is the very fact that we ARE conscious. So much of our body and even of our cognition is functioning completely automatically that it shows that advanced behavior is possible without consciousness. In evolution there is a principle that unnecessary functionality is weeded out by natural selection, so for instance bugs that have lived in complete darkness in a cave for millions of years may lose their pigments and even their sight. Since we are conscious this is evidence that consciousness is a necessary causative component in the organism.

What then is consciousness? I have no idea, but it is clearly an aspect of physical reality. Consciousness must be embodied, there are no minds floating around in space. But I think we can do better than that. I think there are subtle clues in our physiology that allows us to catch a glimpse at what is required to build consciousness physically. The two most important ones are these:

1. nerve cells are the most energy consuming in our body. Their metabolism runs much higher than any other cell type in the body. This gives us a clue that consciousness has something to do wtih energy. This becomes even more clear when you realize that your state of mind is also correlated with energy. A depressed, comatized or sleeping mind has lower energy consumption than an focused, alert and awake mind. Consciousness requires energy dissipation.

2. furthermore, replication is a fact of life. We are all born and die, hopefully after we have produced offsprings. And all cells in our body replicate. All cells except nerve cells. Not only are nerve cells the most energetic ones, they also don't renew themselves. That's odd. One should think that the most active cells in our body would be the ones in most desperate need of being replaced, but the opposite is true. We are born with a set of brain cells and these very same cells remain the engine of our consciousness throughout our life. To me that's a pretty strong clue. Consciousness requires physical persistence over time. The implication is that you cannot easily interchange cells in our brain and expect to have the same consciousness!

3. finally, the structure of our nervous system gives us a clue. We cannot feel those parts of the body that are not connected with the brain. If we sever a nerve we lose sensation in that area. That's odd, because the limb is still physically connected to our body. All sorts of chemicals are floating to and from this area. Consciousness is intimately connected with our nerve cells, and I mean that literally. Consciousness requires physical connectivity. All physical components that contribute to our consciousness ar physically connected to each other.

In short. Consciousness seems to require:

- energy dissipation

- physical persistence in time

- physical connectivity (persistence in space)

If this is the case then I am not at all sure that a computer simulation can easily produce consciousness. If the above is true the actual physical configuration and persistence of the machine becomes of vital importance. My impression is that in order to be conscious the way we are our nervous system needs to be *exactly* the way it is physically.

[Marc K.]

I don't think it is possible for humans to act as if their choices were determined. For example, assume that determinism is true. How does this knowledge help you make choices? You can't know what outcome has been determined, or what choices you will make in the end.

This last sentence contradicts your earlier statement that:

Thus, it would be in a sense possible for an onmiscient (or nearly so) computer to be able to predict human action based on its having all the required prerequisite knowledge, the structure of the individual's brain, his personal history, interactions, etc.

[Vladimir Berkov]

This last sentence contradicts your earlier statement that:

It doesn't contradict it at all. The human mind is not omniscient. What a hypothetically omniscient computer might to is completely irrelevant to what the human mind can do.

[Bold Standard]

2. furthermore, replication is a fact of life. We are all born and die, hopefully after we have produced offsprings. And all cells in our body replicate. All cells except nerve cells. Not only are nerve cells the most energetic ones, they also don't renew themselves. That's odd. One should think that the most active cells in our body would be the ones in most desperate need of being replaced, but the opposite is true. We are born with a set of brain cells and these very same cells remain the engine of our consciousness throughout our life. To me that's a pretty strong clue. Consciousness requires physical persistence over time. The implication is that you cannot easily interchange cells in our brain and expect to have the same consciousness!

Actually, the most recent research indicates that new brain cells are generated in adult humans, and that in fact this happens all the time--a process called neurogenesis. (Especially in the hippocampus, and there is evidence that new brain cells can migrate to other parts of the brain as well--at least, we know that happens in the brains of adult macaque monkeys).

Neurogenesis article

Wiki article

Edited November 29, 2006 by Bold Standard

[Ifat Glassman]

Are you actually asserting that you have seen evidence of the nonexistence of will?

No, and I never said anything to suggest it (as far as I can see..).

There seems to be an immense equivocation between the mental and the physical throughout this post. Will is massless and shapeless because it is not a physical quality, but a mental one. Thoughts, emotions, and desires, while they might correspond to physical phenomena in the brain, are not descriptions of physical phenomena in the brain, but are mental phenomena, and thus do not have mass, shape, quantity, or any other attribute that applies only to physical entities.

I agree, these concepts ("thought" "emotion" etc') are describing experiences, and nothing physical. This is exactly like software and hardware. When one talks about the operation of some program, they do not discuss the electric activity that gives rise to it. But no software would exist without the hardware.

The exact mechanisms by which physical activity in the brain and mental activity in the mind interact is not known

They are known sufficiently to suggest that the relation between mind and brain is one like between software and hardware.

There have been patients who had to undergo lesions of parts of their brain (because of epilepsy), and they all showed loss of some mental ability. During open brain surgeries doctors have been stimulating parts of the patient's brain and had the patient give them immediate feedback about their sensations. So a patient would recall certain memories when a certain area in the brain was stimulated, suggesting that the experience is bounded tightly to the physical/electrical changes in those cells.

It is known that emotions can be evoked by stimulating the Amygdala, suggesting that the physical location of circuits that give rise to emotion lay in the Amygdala. Upon lesion of the corpus callosum (the part that connects the two hemispheres of the brain) patients demonstrated independent activity of the right and left parts of their body. For example: If the right hand would hold the book, but the information about the meaning of words was processed in the right hemisphere, eventually the hand would put the book down, after deciding that there is nothing interesting about holding a book in the air for nothing.

All of this suggests that there is no separation between mental experiences and brain activity. To be more accurate: there can exist brain activity that is not experienced by conscious sensation (in certain regions), but not vice versa.

Claiming that mental activity simply doesn't exist because it can't be explained by what we know of physical activity is not a solution. You could just as easily claim that physical activity doesn't exist because it can't be explained by what we know of mental activity. Yet, we know that both exist! And they must interact somehow.

I really have no idea what you are talking about. I never denied the existence of mental experience, nor of physical changes in the brain. I was talking about the relation between the two.

So don't use Occam's razor to slit your throat--entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity, but physical reality, mental reality, and volition are all necessary.

I am not slitting my throat with Occam's razor (nice of you to notice I was using it ). I see no contradiction in what I am saying. It's a perfect match to reality, as far as I can see. I think you must've misunderstood something about what I said.

You've gone from positing a correlation to claiming knowledge of causality. How do you know that the physical changes aren't the result of the mental processes?

Because of two reasons:

1) In all the experiments in neurons no phenomena ever happened that was not the result of already known phenomenas (diffusion, movement of charges due to electric field, firing of action potentials due to peptides in the membrane etc'). There was never a case that a neuron fired an action potential without having the physical properties to support it, and without getting the required stimuli. No physical change has ever been observed that was not perfectly explainable by the physical properties of the system. This suggests that there is nothing "non-physical" that influences the activity of the cells.

2) It has been observed that mental activity without neurons cannot exist. A lesion in a certain part of the brain removed the mental activity that existed when that part was still there. This demonstrates that no cells-->no mind. To argue against this would be rejecting evidence.

How do you know that they are not reciprocal phenomena? How do you know anything besides that the two states are always observed to accompany one another in time?

It's a contradiction to say that the mental is a "result" of the physical, and at the same time, "One cannot 'command' the other." To command means to be the result of something.

They are reciprocal phenomenas. Though there are parts of the brain that calculate things which we are unaware of, so physical activity does not HAVE to have some mental experience for it to exist, but mental experience MUST have alive, active cells to exist. This has been observed. So the mental experience and the physical changes are reciprocal phenomenas in those cells that give rise to conscious thinking in the sense that they happen simultaneously. In those cells any electric activity is accompanied by a conscious sensation/thought. (This has been examined in open brain surgeries and other experiments)

When I said "one cannot command the other" I meant that one cannot happen before the other and influence it's occurrence: they happen together. Perhaps my choice of words wasn't the best that I could have chosen to express this..

You are claiming complete omniscience of the workings of the brain?

Don't be ridiculous. Of course not. But just because we don't know EVERY single mechanism that is going on in the brain (involved in learning, sensations of emotions, etc') doesn't mean I should reject what I already know.

I agree that the brain does not contain anything "non-inanimate," but the mind does.

The mind is just the software, by definition. Just because you defined the term "mind" in a certain way, does not tell you anything about how this thing corresponds with other entities. If I define "software" to be the code of some program+it's appearance, operations etc', it does not mean that software can operate without a computer. And there is no contradiction in saying that the software is able to "run" or be active only on a computer, even though the definition of "software" is as a non-physical entity.

you can not judge the brain the same way you would judge any other physical object in existence--because it is the only physical object in existence which is directly connected to consciousness.

The brain is wholly physical, it's a physical object. Nothing in it's working and physiology EVER suggested anything else. Perhaps you have some evidence to show me that the brain does not act according to it's physical, observable properties? I'm sure a lot of scientists would want to contact you if you can.

It's analogous to this: although the laws of gravity are pretty much universal, you couldn't expect a bird to behave the same way that a rock of the same size and shape would behave if you threw it from a window. Because the bird is acted upon by *wings.* Similarly, the brain won't behave the same way as, let's say a computer (of the kind that actually exists), because the brain is acted upon by *consciousness.*

When you consider all the forces in the system, they can perfectly explain the flying of a bird as the falling of a rock.

If you try to use ONLY the force of gravity to explain both phenomenas, well good luck!

As for your analogy: it is faulty: Wings are physical and interact with the pressure of the air, allowing the bird to stay in the air despite gravity. Consciousness is not physical, it is a sensation/experience that has no ability to influence physical entities in the way wings can. And again, if you have any proof otherwise... please, let me know.

How are you defining will, and why would it have to "float between the neurons of your brain" in order to exist?

"Will" is a mental experience of having a desire of something, and also: the capability of conscious choice and decision and intention.

And something would have to "float between the neurons of your brain" to exist because if something has no form, no cause, no mass, no measurable influence over physical entities, then it doesn't exist. But since you know and I know that it exists, you must have some sort of image of this thing and how it does what you think it does. So this is the image that I thought you might have (or any other person who rejects the idea that consciousness is bound to physical changes in the brain in an unbreakable bond).

[Marc K.]

It doesn't contradict it at all. The human mind is not omniscient. What a hypothetically omniscient computer might to is completely irrelevant to what the human mind can do.

??? O...???K...???, so let us construct this hypothetically semi-omniscient computer. I go to visit this crystal ball, I mean computer, and discover that I am going to get hit by a bus the minute I leave. Can I then avoid the bus?

[Vladimir Berkov]

??? O...???K...???, so let us construct this hypothetically semi-omniscient computer. I go to visit this crystal ball, I mean computer, and discover that I am going to get hit by a bus the minute I leave. Can I then avoid the bus?

This is essentially a problem dealing with the concept of omniscience, rather than one dealing particularly with free will. I really have no way to answer it, in the same way I can't answer the question "Can God create a stone so heavy he can't lift it?" The truth is that we really have no idea how omniscience would actually work, and how telling someone their predicted future would or would not influence the result.

[Onar Åm]

Actually, the most recent research indicates that new brain cells are generated in adult humans, and that in fact this happens all the time--a process called neurogenesis. (Especially in the hippocampus, and there is evidence that new brain cells can migrate to other parts of the brain as well--at least, we know that happens in the brains of adult macaque monkeys).

Neurogenesis article

Wiki article

Absolutely, I didn't bring this point into the discussion, however, because it is still true that neurogenesis is rather exceptional. The turnover rate for the brain is still very low. It is, however, very intriguing to notice that the role of persistence is not limited to humans. We see it also in e.g. ant colonies. Just like the brain cells in humans, the "brain" of the ant colony, namely the queen, persists over time. A queen can live for 30 years, sterile workers live 1-2 years whereas males live only a few weeks. Thus we see a kind of hierarchy of persistence according to their role of control. The queen is the control center of the ant colony and therefore persists longest, whereas male ants are like sperm, they are a mere tool of reproduction and can have a very short life span.

This dual role of consciousness as both persistence and control center is interesting with relation to individualism. It shows that natural selection is not always a benign process. Individuals -- like male ants -- can be exploited and essentially used as slaves of other, more persistent beings. Had our cells been rational individuals it would have been appropriate to call our brain a slave owner. That's of course not the case, but reveals the general tendency of individualism in nature: towards persistence and ever greater self-control.

[hunterrose]

Man, this thread is getting intricate!

Humans can be held responsible for the decisions they make guided by reason.

You might like this one, Vladimir.

Terry, Jerry, and Harry are standing together. Terry and Jerry both want to harm Harry, but Terry acts on this desire. Terry pushes Jerry into Harry, which causes Harry to break an arm.

Jerry's decision to break Harry's arm is guided by reason; can Jerry be held responsible?

[Vladimir Berkov]

Man, this thread is getting intricate!You might like this one, Vladimir.

Terry, Jerry, and Harry are standing together. Terry and Jerry both want to harm Harry, but Terry acts on this desire. Terry pushes Jerry into Harry, which causes Harry to break an arm.

Jerry's decision to break Harry's arm is guided by reason; can Jerry be held responsible?

This is essentially a legal question, not a philosophical one. For Terry you have the possibility of civil and criminal liability. For Jerry at best you have the possibility of civil liability.

Terry is going to be liable criminally for assault by intentionally causing the bodily injury to Harry. He is also going to be liable for the (civil) tort of battery and perhaps also assault. Proving causation would likely be the same in each instance.

Jerry is not going to be held criminally liable because there was no intentional or reckless act on his part based on the facts given. Likewise there is no intentional tort liability. Perhaps you could find him liable under a negligence standard because of his location at the time of Terry's act but this seems a stretch.

Remember, that under the law causation does not equal legal responsibility. Causation is simply one element that must be proved in various areas. Thus you can have situations where an individual is the factual cause of an injury but not liable for the harm.

[hunterrose]

This is essentially a legal question, not a philosophical one.

Oh, it's philosophical all right...

Terry is going to be liable criminally for assault by intentionally causing the bodily injury to Harry.

Jerry is not going to be held criminally liable because there was no intentional or reckless act on his part based on the facts given.

In a deterministic world, what do you mean by "intentional"?

[Vladimir Berkov]

Oh, it's philosophical all right...

In a deterministic world, what do you mean by "intentional"?

As I said, this is essentially a legal question. Conduct is intentional when it is in his conscious objective or desire to cause the result.

[y_feldblum]

It's inherently a philosophical question, because the implicit adverb is: can Jerry be held morally responsible?

[KendallJ]

In a deterministic world, what do you mean by "intentional"?

But philosophy is only of importance when we're doing time travel experiments and repeating things with initial conditions the same and such, right.

I wonder what the concept of legality is based upon, if not philosophy? Whim? Vote? The bible? Precedent?

So from Vladimir's viewpoint, Jerry is legally "reponsible", but morally neutral since he was determined?

[DavidOdden]

I wonder what the concept of legality is based upon, if not philosophy? Whim? Vote? The bible? Precedent?

All of the above. Especially the later. Law if very complicated, both totally arbitrary and yet totally natural and self evident.

The correct answer, BTW, is that Jerry is not morally responsible because although he may have had some irrational itch to harm Harry, he decided, of his own free will, not to act on that urge. There is no causal relationship between his minor mental defect and the damage inflicted. However, he might be mildly morally reproachable for having a irrational thought, depending on the nature of the thought and how he dealt with it -- it doesn't rise to the level of responsibility. In Berkov's world, Terry would not be morally responsible since he had to do what he did, since the law doesn't take the determinists POV, he would be legally responsible. The law being arbitrary, we could expand the range of non-volitional defenses to that Terry could get off, arguing that he lack the capacity to control his actions since he is, after all, a determined machine.

[hunterrose]

As I said, this is essentially a legal question. Conduct is intentional when it is in his conscious objective or desire to cause the result.

You give two criteria for " person X intentionally did action Y":

X had a conscious objective or desire to do Y.

X caused the action Y.

• Jerry had a conscious objective or desire to harm Harry.
  
• Jerry caused harm to Harry.
  
• Therefore, Jerry intentionally harmed Harry.
  

In determinism, it is impossible to determine who fundamentally caused Harry's harm. A long chain of people "had to" act in order for Harry to be ultimately harmed, and any of these people, all of them, or none of them could be (according to determinism?) reasonably held accountable. In your case we add the conditional of desire, but isn't the essential point the same?

In a volitional system, causing (i.e. choosing to) harm is fundamentally different from being caused to harm. With such a distinguishing premise, we can categorize a legal system that punishes Jerry as unreasonable.

Philosophically, determinism doesn't have such a luxury. Punishing Jerry is (in determinism) just as reasonable as punishing Terry; it's merely a legal question as to which "reasonable" system is (deterministically) enacted.

[Edit: added Vladimir's quote to remove ambiguity on whom I was referring to]

Edited November 30, 2006 by hunterrose

[KendallJ]

So from Vladimir's viewpoint, Jerry is legally "reponsible", but morally neutral since he was determined?

woops, think I meant to say Terry above.

Maybe Terry is morally responsible, only if he was "acting as if" he had volition.

Edited November 30, 2006 by KendallJ

[Vladimir Berkov]

So from Vladimir's viewpoint, [T]erry is legally "reponsible", but morally neutral since he was determined?

That would be the position of a "hard" determinist, which I am not. On the more modern compatibilist view, Terry may be held responsible to the extent that his actions were guided by reason.

You give two criteria for " person X intentionally did action Y":

X had a conscious objective or desire to do Y.

X caused the action Y.

• Jerry had a conscious objective or desire to harm Harry.
  
• Jerry caused harm to Harry.
  
• Therefore, Jerry intentionally harmed Harry.
  

In determinism, it is impossible to determine who fundamentally caused Harry's harm. A long chain of people "had to" act in order for Harry to be ultimately harmed, and any of these people, all of them, or none of them could be (according to determinism?) reasonably held accountable. In your case we add the conditional of desire, but isn't the essential point the same?

In criminal law all the liability I discussed presupposes "conduct" on the part of the person in question. The reason why Jerry's mental intention doesn't matter is because in criminal mental intention only matters to the extent it is applied to some conduct, and in this case Jerry didn't "do" anything. There was no conduct by Jerry to which a culpable mental state might be attached.

As to causation, in short there are two issues there. There is factual cause, in which you really do have a "long chain of people" brought in as factual causes. There is also the scope of liability (aka "proximate cause") which decides to cut off the chain at certain points for normative reasons. And, remember, before causation is even an issue you need to have an intentional, reckless or negligent act, a duty and breach, or some other element to form a basis for liabiltiy. Causation doesn't act alone to establish legal responsibility.

In a volitional system, causing (i.e. choosing to) harm is fundamentally different from being caused to harm. With such a distinguishing premise, we can categorize a legal system that punishes Jerry as unreasonable.

Volitional (aka "libertarian") systems of legal responsibility have all sorts of wierd results and problems of their own, but the subject is rather beside the point here. I will try to post my law review student note I am writing on the subject on forum when it is complete.

Philosophically, determinism doesn't have such a luxury. Punishing Jerry is (in determinism) just as reasonable as punishing Terry; it's merely a legal question as to which "reasonable" system is (deterministically) enacted.

In the compatibilist system, that is not the case. It would be unreasonable to punish Jerry because Jerry's causal involvement in the ultimate harm was not guided by reason in any way. Terry, however, was guided by reason to the extent he disregarded the moral and legal imperatives not to cause intentional harm to another.

[KendallJ]

That would be the position of a "hard" determinist, which I am not. On the more modern compatibilist view, Terry may be held responsible to the extent that his actions were guided by reason.

I wasn't as much interested in the legal intricacies as the moral ones. You left that part out...

"Legally responsible to the extent... and morally:" ? what

Edited November 30, 2006 by KendallJ

[Vladimir Berkov]

Even the moral issues in the problem are complicated, and with the legal angle added even more so. I am trying to keep the thread from turning into a discussion of the extent of moral responsibility for actions.

[hunterrose]

Jerry's causal involvement in the ultimate harm was not guided by reason in any way.

How do you know his involvement wasn't guided by reason?

[Vladimir Berkov]

How do you know his involvement wasn't guided by reason?

Because there was no conduct on his part. There is no point where Jerry weighed the legal/moral prohibition on injury and then acted. You might still argue that Jerry was causally involved, although even this is debatable depending on how broadly you draw the "but for" test.

Again, I am working on the basis of the facts provided. If Jerry had decided to stand where he was with the expectation that he would be pushed by Terry, then the situation is different.

[hunterrose]

But what do you mean there was no conduct on his part?

I understand that you're saying he didn't intend his conduct, but nevertheless there was conduct (perhaps unintended) on his part, wasn't there? He did act in such a way that caused harm to another person.

[Vladimir Berkov]

But what do you mean there was no conduct on his part?

I understand that you're saying he didn't intend his conduct, but nevertheless there was conduct (perhaps unintended) on his part, wasn't there? He did act in such a way that caused harm to another person.

The law would say that he didn't act at all. The fact that he was historically involved in a causal chain doesn't mean he acted. In a similar example, you could say that Jerry was asleep, and Terry put a gun in his hand, pointed it at Harry and squeezed Jerry's finger against the trigger until the gun fired.

Edited November 30, 2006 by Vladimir Berkov

[hunterrose]

Ah, this gets interesting.

So:

• Jerry was pushed
  
• being pushed (regardless of whether he weighed the legal prohibition on injury) does not qualify as an action on Jerry's part
  
• therefore Jerry didn't act, and he thus can't reasonably be held accountable
  

Is this correct?